Farewells

So, this is my last post in this blog. It’s been an interesting time and I’ve actually enjoyed a fair chunk of the material we’ve gone over in the class. It has broadened my reading choices and actually caused me to examine the lyrics of some of my favorite songs. I was never a big fan of poetry before. I can’t say I was into the non-traditional short stories though. While they were interesting, I think I would just as soon stick with your stereotypical rising action and narratives. But that’s just my personal writing choice.

Looking at some of my posts from earlier in the quarter, I noticed that my poetry posts were a lot of paraphrasing. Later, I started to elaborate on some of philosophical meanings of the writings, but I did not examine the structure as often and how that might have affected how I read poems. I probably could have stood to do that more.

You might say I did the same thing with the stories when we first started reading them. I felt a bit more comfortable examining them at first though because I’d taken classes already in examining fiction. Over time, it was easier to pick apart symbolism and metaphors as I learned how to distinguish between the two and see the deeper meanings of the texts. Finding out that stories had their own rhythm like poems was a bit of a surprise as well. I think I might try to incorporate that into some of my own writing

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The fact that my blog was written more for a class than the general public, unlike some of my others, did significantly affect more of my writing. I decided it was better to keep out some of my humor and more radical opinions in order to try to keep a kind of professionalism considering the purpose of the blog was academic. The audience I envisioned actually reading the posts were most likely going to be my classmates and professor.

When commenting on others’ blogs, I attempted to draw them to alternate ways in viewing a character’s motivation or possibly the symbolism represented in a certain object. I’ve always enjoyed playing devil’s advocate and the majority of my comments involved a question and not so much statements.

In all honesty, I cannot say I received a lot of comments on my writing. The few that I did either agreed with what I was saying or mentioned something that we covered in class later that day.

In general, I liked most of my blog writing. The few blogs that I didn’t like were the ones I admittedly rushed through, but the others I felt confident with. The best, by far, were the ones that I discussed over with some of my friends as at times they find the need to read the same things I read…strangely enough. I think my best posts had to do with the stories “Girls” and “School.”

As far as whether or not I think the blog postings helped in the class, I would have to say yes. It’s nice to be able to spit out your ideas before the discussion so you have an idea of what you want to say instead of being stuck in the class without a real thought. I think the things that I like to discuss the most are probably metaphors and symbols as I often like looking at philosophical meanings of stories.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great spring break. Maybe I’ll see you again around campus. Take care.

Humor, Irony, and Heritage
The short story is a mode through which humans have sought to express emotion, lessons, and spreading ideals of life. Such tales have always been read for pleasure, but underlying them one can often learn something of his or herself through the reflection of characters and feelings that are brought about through the tension between lines in a plot. Such characters, like Jackson Jackson in Sherman Alexie’s What You Pawn I Will Redeem, teach a reader that by keeping a sense of humor no matter how hard a journey gets a person can always consider the experience worthwhile. The irony and humor in the plot brings the destitute and unfortunate together in such a way as to help the reader better understand and appreciate Jackson’s quest for his heritage and the homeless Indian’s position.
Jackson, a Spokane Indian, feels no need to hide or deny who he is. He lives up to the stereotype of the homeless Indian who enjoys drinking and spending his days roaming about, doing as he feels. While he journeys through Seattle, the reader often sees him cracking jokes about his situation and basking in the dark humor of his existence. He never lets the seriousness of the situation get him depressed, prevent him from his daily musings, or trials in survival. In the character’s own words, “I know it sounds strange to be proud of this, but it means a lot to me, being trustworthy enough to piss in somebody else’s clean bathroom. Maybe you don’t understand the value of a clean bathroom, but I do” (Alexie 1). He takes a kind of pride in being homeless. One would not expect the vagrant to look so favorably on his circumstance considering the images that homelessness conjures in the everyday mind.
Jackson’s desire to have his grandmother’s powwow regalia when he walks into the pawnshop with his companions may even be considered ironic. One would think that he would just as soon want it for warmth or in order to trade for another object seeing as he does not mind being homeless. He actually hopes to possess the clothing because of wanting to be closer to his heritage and deceased grandparent instead of a need to maintain a basic existence (Alexie 1).
The shopkeeper tells Jackson that he cannot have the regalia unless he gives him a thousand dollars the next day at noon. He gives the Indian a twenty dollar bill anyway. With those twenty dollars, Jackson and his companions, Rose of Sharon and Junior, go and buy liquor so they can “think” of what they are going to do in order to come up with the money needed to make the purchase (Alexie 2). What money they had that might have been used in order to get information or invested for a return was squandered on. This seems somewhat more stereotypical of homeless drunkard image. This is not in the direction in which one would believe Jackson would want to go as the reader’s view begins to change of him. It does, however, show that he is willing to share with others.
Throughout the story, the protagonist meets multiple examples of homeless Indians. The first two he references are Rose of Sharon and Junior. He loses both of these people because they wander on their way. Jackson gives brief explanations of their departures, but refers to them as “my teammates, my defenders, my posse” (Alexie 1). This is how he pictures all Indians that he encounters seeing even though he does not stay with one or another for very long. The irony in this is that where the normal person might think Jackson has lost everything he cares for by being homeless he still sees comrades despite not knowing them individually. Even if they are all from different tribes they are linked in that they have lost their heritage in some form, be it from not having a house or simply by being a Native American in a predominantly white society.
This same theme can be seen again in the bar scene where Jackson buys all of his “cousins” drinks after having received money from a winning lottery ticket (Alexie 5). Not knowing any of their names, he still shows charity to his people.
The protagonist meets with some Aleut Indians early in the story who are sitting on the shoreline wishing they could return to Alaska. Jackson mourns with them as they cannot return home because of the money they wasted at “sacred” bars and then asks them for some money so he can continue his quest for the regalia (Alexie 2-3). The passage reflects the plight of the stereotype portrayed throughout the story. The Aleuts symbolize homeless Indians that spent too much time drinking or wasting time and now sit wishing they could return home. Home could be a metaphor for heritage. The interesting and ironic thing about Jackson that makes him different from the rest of these Indians is that he wishes to find his heritage hidden within the regaining of his grandmother’s powwow garb.
When Jackson is picked up for sleeping on the train track by a cop and put into the back of his cruiser, one sees both of them having a conversation that results in much humor and irony. “The two funniest tribes I’ve ever been around are Indians and Jews, so I guess that says something about the inherent humor of genocide” (Alexie 6). This view brings the entire story into a more international focus on the problems of not just Native Americans but those of different ethnicities. The protagonist does not just regard his own people’s problems but also those of others that are downtrodden, making them all family in a dark example of humor.
Another attempt the protagonist makes to earn money is by going to a newspaper publisher where he gets some papers for free. He retells the story of the regalia and the man selling papers suggests Jackson go to the police. Jackson replies that he wants to get the clothing back on his own. “’I don’t want to do that,” I said. “It’s a quest now. I need to win it back by myself’” (Alexie 3). It is of the utmost importance that the character does this on his own and not by charity. This would defeat the purpose of the quest and helps the reader’s opinion of the character change even further as he is willing to try and earn back his “heritage” and not take the easy way out. Jackson proves to be a much hardier character than one might have thought. The fact that he always looks up and keeps his humor throughout story helps to strengthen this view.
In the conclusion, Jackson gets back his grandmother’s powwow garb, but that is only a symbol of his heritage. His tendency to be irresponsible with money and questionable earning techniques does not lessen his generosity with other destitute Indians. His humor brings the reader and those he meets on his journey together in a mutual understanding of what it truly means to find one’s heritage. Heritage is respecting one’s people.

Yeah, it's a bit late.

Essay Topic

Seeing as we've gone over a variety of stories in our textual analysis class, I've decided to write my essay topic using the story "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" by Sherman Alexie. Inside, it carries such themes as generosity, redemption, and a love of a lost heritage. I also aim to discuss some of the humor in the story and how it helps to further the themes presented. Some historical content might be researched upon as well as this story refers to Native Americans.

Another part of the text that I find to interesting is how Jackson lives up to the stereotype of being a drunken, homeless Indian, yet this doesn't seem to bother him. He uses it to his advantage as he embarks on a kind of quest in order to regain his grandmother's ceremonial regalia. Some of the structural elements of the reading also help shape its affect such as using the stated times throughout the day in order to give the reader an idea of how fast or how slow the main character is progressing through the plot.

The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas

The story written by Reginald McKnight called "The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas" takes place in a Texas public school where a young African American man deals with the rigors of the newly implemented integration policy within his education. He remarks about how he now gets ten white kids to himself as well as his other fellow black students. Only two others are in the class. Ah-so, the only girl, sits in the front and keeps silent save for the remote times when she might read aloud in class. Marvin, a big guy who spits on his arm and sleeps all day, never moves or attempts to participate. The narrator makes some semblence of trying to answer the teacher's questions despite a barrage of racist jokes she passes day in and out.

The primary part of the plot deals with a larger but poor white boy by the name of Oakely that sits behind the narrator. He constantly threatens him from behind his desk, taunting and gesturing. Oakley likes to tell stories about how his brother died in Vietnam and how he needs to get all the practice he can before being sent to the country so he can kill. One day the narrator turns and asks the boy after a threat that he thought his brother was dead so why did he keep bringing up a dead brother that couldn't teach.

Later, in the story the two get into a dodgeball match. Both come to the end untouched while the other kids in the gym class were put out. The coach decides that they must have a death match. Using volleyballs, they take turns slugging at the other. The narrator finally beans Oakley in the face and even goes so far as to draw blood from him. While in the locker room Oakley and the narrator again face off about a fight after school. The white boy picks on him because he believes his is "richer" than him and for the fact he talks like a "city" kid as well as the fact that he is black. The narrator becomes exasperated and asks why Oakley doesn't attack Marvin, who happens to be more his size. Marvin gets up and leaves the room quietly and this doesn't dissuade the bully's decision.

At the end, Oakley begins pushing the narrator around once more outside of the school. The boy seems to snap and starts telling the bully to call him a nigger. Refusing and only slapping him, Oakley continues to pester the boy until Marvin finally socks the perpetrator in the face. After standing and staring at the narrator, some teachers come and haul both Oakley and Marvin away.

Going back to class the next day, the narrator remarks how despite never having really been noticed before the two boys' presence was felt more keenly now that they were not back in the school. He looks a moment at Ah-so who turns around and smiles at him briefly before staring at her desk once again.

Ironically in the story, the narrator described Marvin as being the one person who he seemed to dislike the most. He constantly brought up that he did not want to be like him in that he never did anything in class and seemed to take the labels that the white class or "society" put upon him. In the end, it was Marvin who saved the narrator, never saying why he did it. Marvin simply wished to be Marvin.

Learning about Death

Donald Barthelme's "School," is more what we might consider a narrative in that the teacher of the kids in the school describes the story from a first-person style. He doesn't so much say what he is doing as the text progress, but retells events over a great span of time.

At first as we read, the instructor, Edgar, speaks of his class's adventures with trying plant trees, snakes, and herbs. Later, they move onto salamanders, gerbils, and finally puppies. Unfortunately, all of these creatures die as the class progresses through what might be considered more simple life-forms and onto more complex ones after. The second to last page depicts how some of the people in the local town die.

Eventually, the class begins to ask about the nature of life in a small dialogue asking is life defined by death. The teacher replies that death is defined by life. Both these things are true in their own ways as one shouldn't be so preoccupied with death to not enjoy life. But one should not take life for granted either as it does not last forever.

In the conclusion of the story, the class urges Edgar to make love with his assistant,Helen, and at first is hesistant but in the end does so. He tells the class that they shouldn't be frightened to learn about anything. This parallels the fact that he travels through discussions of death with the children as well as shows them an "assertion" of why they should not be frightened of learning through the wonder of sex. This might be a metaphor for the class beginning to learn about the nature of life, love, and how they come about seeing as the rest of the story is shadowed in death.

Birthmates

In Gish Jen's "Birthmates," we see a middle-aged Asian man who goes to a hotel for a business conference in a somewhat rougher part of town. We're not sure entirely what he does, save that it has to do with computers or software.

At the beginning of the story, Art, the main character, seems to constantly be worried about security and even goes as far as to carry around the handset of a telephone to posssibly be used as a weapon in the supposedly crime-ridden neighborhood.

He wanders into the lobby trying to find where he needs to go for the conference and runs into a bunch of kids playing. Apparently, Art is the target of some dare as they try and steal the phone handset from him. They aren't successful at first and Art drifts into and out of memories of his wife and how they were trying to have a baby that was not successful because of infertility. Art also remembers one of his associates, Billy, and how he seems young and "hip" so as to keep up on the latest news of society. This seems to make Art a little jealous.

Later, he gets hit in the head by the phone as one of the kids steals it and he wakes up in a room with a woman who used to be a nurse named Cindy. She takes care of him for a time and he takes off and makes it to the conference. There he continues to debate his existence and that of the people around him. He thinks of how he'd like to have possibly gotten with the nurse woman and even how he was happy about his associate Billy leaving so he might be able to move up in the job market.

The last thought he has is of the baby he and his wife might of had and how...despite it being a hopeful event...that baby would have had a hard time in life because it's bones were very brittle.

Girl

So I do have to say this is probably one of the most unique stories I've ever read. It seems like a memory someone might have had sitting on a bench thinking about the things their parents have told them throughout a few years. Unfortunately for the girl in the story "Girl," most of these things seemed to have negative feelings attached to them.

A large portion of what is written in the story seems to be stereotypical things a mother might have taught her daughter in the fifties; from how to do laundry, to cooking, to how to handle her first boyfriend. The mother teaches a variety of skills but after each time she teaches there always rests some measure of doubt that the daughter will ever grow to reach the potential of being an actual lady. The matron constantly says things like this is how the girl should sit at a table so the men around her won't recognize her for the slut the parent thinks she'll become.

Towards the later end of the story we start to see that the mother is even more ruthless than we might have thought. She mentions how to manipulate men, how to create abortion medicines, and how to overall get what one wants socially.

Overall, I would like to know why the mother doubts her child so and what exactly made her to be the woman that she is.

Frozen Minds

In Wallace Steven's poem "The Snow Man," the narrator writes of what may truly be a snow man and how he views beauty of winter and quiet aloneness.

The first stanza says that one must have a mind literally of winter in order to watch the frost and the snow-covered boughs of the pine trees. The second tells that a person must be in the cold for an extended time in order to see the junipers crusted in ice and the spruces blinking in a haze of the precipitation stuck to them.

The speaker doesn't seem to mind being alone either as he speaks of January sun passing and that he finds no misery in a few dead leaves floating by. He apparently likes solitude. In the fourth stanza, he tells of the wind and says it is the sound of the land, or the sound of everything. And it blows everywhere in that "bare" place. Again reinforcing that he doesn't mind the thought of being alone.

The last stanza describes the person in the snow that listens. It says he is made of nothing which may be referring to the fact that he is not truly human. He may be nothing and observing alone, but that doesn't mean that just because someone cannot see the beauty of the landscape does it doesn't exist.

Tying It Back Home

I grew up in a mostly working-class community. People went into work at eight and came back home at five in the afternoon. State park jobs, construction, and anything that had to deal in home improvement seemed to be the common methods of gathering income. At the center of the county was a lake where a fair bit of camping and sightseeing was done over the summers. Restaurant and boating jobs always opened up more around that time of year. Honda’s factories were pretty much the life-blood of the nearby towns though.

One of my friends in high school once said Springsteen’s “The River” was like a theme of his life. He was a few years older than me, didn’t go to college, and ended up marrying his high school sweetheart since they’d had the baby. After looking closer at the lyrics, I think I have a better idea of what my friend meant.

The first stanza of the poem explains that the speaker came from an area where you were pretty much destined to do as your father did. This makes the audience wonder if it was the same for his grandfather and so forth.

Later on it explains how the speaker and the girl met in high school and would leave their home to see some green fields and a river. Green fields could be taken as a universal symbol picturing a life of plenty. The river may represent a dream of freedom because the young couple seems to dive into it to get away from the troubles of a working-class life.

As the song progresses, the girl, Mary, gets pregnant and the pair marry. The young man only gets a union card and a wedding coat for his birthday because he now has to take on the responsibility of raising a family. Their trip to the courthouse is just as inglorious because there are no smiles or walks down the aisle. This makes us wonder if the family did not support what had just happened between the two or if maybe everyone is simply too poor to afford the costs of a traditional wedding.

The speaker gets a job with a construction company and mentions that times are hard because of the economy and not having much work. He reminisces about old dreams he had as a younger man but acts as if they don’t exist and even his wife “acts” as if she shares the opinion. Yet even as their chances for dreams have seemed to pass away, the man remembers a time when the two would go on car rides and lie next to each other beside the river. These memories trouble his mind like a curse. This grants us an image that these thoughts have apparently been stuck with him for some time and maybe even indefinitely. The man regrets not being able to have lived his dreams and despite his river dream being “dry” he still thinks about it.

Looking Back...

The poem "On Turning Ten" is written from the point of view of a boy just turning, of course, ten. Interestingly, between Billy Collin's birth and the year the poem was published he would be 57 years old.

The text can carry almost two different meanings. The literal reading of the poem speaks of a small boy finally hitting a point in his life where all the things he enjoyed while young have to be left behind as he ages. The second and maybe implied meaning of the piece might be a commentary about how humans can feel a pleasant nostalgia about our younger years in general, seeing as how Collin published the writing when he was quite a bit older.

In the first stanza, we see the boy speak of his coming age as if it's a sickness of the soul. Phrases like "mumps of the psyche" and "chicken pox of the soul" conjur an image that the child may be stressed so much about his turning ten that he could be feeling actual physical symptoms.

The second stanza seems to have the speaker addressing adults as his audience. He tells them that despite being so young and having maybe many more in his life he still feels a longing for the games and imaginary play. Older people have forgotten what it was like to live as an Arabian wizard, a soldier, or prince. He alludes to life being so much more complex than the vivid memories he has of being a toddler.

A third stanza gives us a picture of him sitting at home by a window in the fading afternoon light on the side of his tree house, a representation of childhood's fading glory. The boy's bike's dark blue speed is drained and somehow lifeless.

The last stanza concludes by telling us the sadness felt by the speaker as he continues to walk through life. Saying goodbye to imaginary friends and the carefree attitude of a youth, he "falls" upon the troubles and pain of pre-adolescence pictured as one falling upon a sidewalk and bleeding.

Day One

So, hello everyone in textual analysis. This would be the blog of Dean Wright. I've got nothing too interesting to report right now, but will soon in the future. I can't say I've got much experience with poems so most of what I'm going to be putting on here will likely be a shot in the dark.